On Mondays during the NHL lockout, Sporting News will present radical—and, in most cases improbable—proposals designed to get the league back on track and ensure its long-term health. The sixth in that series: using the dispute to implement a shorter schedule.

While the NHLPA decides whether to buckle and accept the NHL’s 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue and stricter contracting rules, there is one part of the league’s last proposal that has not been thoroughly dissected: preserving the 82-game schedule.

The NHL might not need an 82-game regular season in order to be successful. In fact, shortening the six-month grind might help hockey to position itself for more growth in the future.

With its current start date (most seasons, anyway) in early October, the NHL puts itself in direct competition with Major League Baseball’s playoffs, as well as an NFL schedule that now includes Thursday night games. A few weeks into hockey’s regular season, the NBA starts up, further shoving the NHL into the corner.

By starting in mid-November, the NHL could avoid conflicts with MLB, start its schedule after several NFL teams have faded into obscurity, and avoid having its thunder stolen by the NBA to the same extent that it is now.

A 66-game NHL season, with home and away games against each of the other 29 teams, plus extra home-and-homes with division rivals, would provide more balance to competition than the current setup. Further, a 19.5 percent reduction in the number of regular-season games would mean fewer chances for players to get hurt, helping the league ensure that more stars are available for when the real money is made – the playoffs.

By starting the NHL regular season on Hockey Hall of Fame weekend, the league could seize a spot on the calendar in the middle of November that is, on the major pro sports scene, fairly dull.

One big problem for the NHL is attendance in small markets, and a lot of it has to do with the calendar. Of the NHL’s 30 teams, 22 had average attendance figures in the first month of the season (up to Hall of Fame weekend) that was either lower than or equal to the rest of the season. Six teams—Dallas, Phoenix, Florida, New Jersey, Columbus, and Minnesota—averaged at least 1,000 fewer tickets sold per early-season game than their full-season averages. The only team that had that significant of a decline in attendance as the season went on was the Tampa Bay Lightning, which carried high expectations after reaching the Eastern Conference finals, then spent most of the season languishing in last place in the Southeast Division. A late, futile playoff push was not nearly enough to save Tampa Bay from a season attendance average of 17,268 after a strong showing of 19,034 in the first month.

With a shorter regular season, the attendance-souring effects of a disappointing season would be lessened, while teams who can’t get a foothold in October and November would only have to sell tickets for their prime earning months. Nowhere is this more evident than in Dallas, where the Stars might as well not exist until the Cowboys’ season is over. Last year, the Stars averaged 10,001 fans for their first seven home dates, and 15,097 for the remainder of the season.

It’s not just at the arena where fans don’t show up in October. NBC Sports Network’s ratings tell a similar story about television viewers. Last season, according to figures from Puck the Media, NHL telecasts in October averaged 285,600 viewers, the only month under 300,000. Take away opening night, which included NBCSN’s most-viewed game of the regular season, and the October average is 205,000 viewers—a worse figure than when the Capitals, without suspended star Alex Ovechkin, visited Tampa Bay at the end of January.

Overall, NHL broadcasts on NBCSN averaged 322,942 viewers last season for all months after October, a 13 percent increase over viewership in the first month of the season, and a 58 percent increase over October with opening night taken out of the equation. Business is better from November on, both at the arena and on television.

All of that explains why the NHL is eager to have an 82-game schedule that starts in November this time around. It would be the best of both worlds for owners: a full season of gate receipts while avoiding the worst financial portion of the calendar. The question is where the sacrifice is better suited—on the calendar or on the total number of games.

One upside for the owners would be that, with a 66-game schedule, they would finally have a legitimate reason to propose paying the players less than the value of their current contracts, while at the same time increasing their per-game profit margins. The players would then have a decision to make, determining whether it would be worth taking less money in exchange for having to pay less of a physical toll over the course of a season, thereby likely extending their careers.

While cutting 16 games from each team’s regular season would significantly diminish overall hockey-related revenue, there are many untapped revenue streams (see the other entries in this series) that could be tapped to help make up the difference. With a shorter regular season, the possibility of a preseason or in-season international club tournament with the best teams in Europe would grow, while the NHL and NBCSN could make up for some of the lost early-season dates by adding play-in games for the seventh through 10th-placed teams in each conference—7 vs. 10, 8 vs. 9, with the winners going on to play the top two seeds in the first round.

For purists, there would be questions about the record books, but comparing numbers across eras already is a fruitless exercise, and it isn’t as if the NHL has always been married to an 82-game schedule. Hockey teams played 70 games a year until 1967, and the 82-game setup has only been in effect since 1995-96. It’s not like anybody is touching Wayne Gretzky’s records anyway, and going to a 66-game schedule actually would open up a new section of the record book for today’s stars.

As it is, the record books are already tarnished. Martin Brodeur has missed 134 games in his career, and counting, due to the NHL and NHLPA being unable to work together. How much less assailable would his career marks be if he could get those games back? While the benefits of a shortened schedule have to be weighed against the costs, there is no doubt that 82 or 66 would be better than zero.